Dear Playlisters, Artists, Labels, Managers, and more;

When we launched Playlister.Club a year ago, we had a simple aim: to create the best suite of playlist management tools for independent playlist curators. Since then, we have onboarded over 27,000 playlists representing +25 million followers, and a vibrant community of thousands of artists and hundreds of music companies. During the process, we have also learned some incredibly valuable lessons on how to navigate the playlist world, which have shifted our mission & goals as a platform.

Before starting to climb, first understand the mountain

In the first months of working & talking to artists and labels, we began to learn about the pain points you face when trying to get your music heard. A larger question came out of these conversations:

Is the objective of getting placed on a playlist to: a) maximize short term streams at all costs; or b) reach the right fans?

What we found is that most artists were (mistakenly) laser-focused on A: maximizing their streams at all costs; without concentrating on the quality of who is behind the streams? Are they actually resonating with your song, and converting to real fans?

We saw many artists were frustrated with their prior promotion efforts, but also did not understand what their goal should have been to begin with. Even if you were focused on reaching the right fans, there is still a huge gap in understanding of how to navigate the playlist ecosystem to achieve this. Essentially, there was no easy way to do this — until now.

Data is the solution

After collecting hundreds of thousands of data points across thousands of curator interactions with tracks and artists, we found that the answer to a lot of the above pain points for artists, labels, and curators: Data!

For the past few months, our team has been working hard to create tools & dashboards to address the pain points above. Not with the goal of maximizing streams, rather, to get your music to the right ears; people who have a higher chance of converting to real fans.

Here are some examples of what is possible with our new data-focused platform:

1. Truly understand the curators you are targeting,
   through exclusive playlisting data and behavioral stats that will make you become better and more effective at getting your music to the right ears. What time of day is this curator most active? What kind of music have they been adding lately?
2. How do you really compare to your peers?
   Comparative dashboards to track the performance of your song versus other artists of your size, to learn where you need to improve for your next releases.
3. In-depth release metrics.
   We can analyze different aspects of your release, to show where curators and potential fans are dropping off. Is your album cover not engaging clicks? What does a curator do after they actually listen to your song for the first time?
4. Get a preview of how your track will do.
   Our Playlistability Index analyzes the type of music our community has been adding to their playlists and then scores your track across hundreds of variables. Want to go more specific? You can also check your playlistability compared to what a specific curator has been recently adding to their playlists, for each of your releases. This data can effectively predict which one of your songs a specific curator will like the most!
5. Get better (and more realistic) forecasts
   on how your track will do across specific genres and geographies. We are expanding our data reach to understand not only what the biggest independent curators are doing across the world, but also tracking what is trending in the major algorithmic playlists. Scoring your tracks against these will give a better sense about which geography to focus on, and what region your music has a better chance of resonating with fans!

This data has been made possible by our community…

Alongside all of this data, one of the biggest (and most pleasant) surprises we’ve had, is all of the music discovery that has blossomed as an outcome of the community we have created. Our curators, in their daily activities of selecting and evaluating tracks, have uncovered amazing music. Extraordinary A&R work is happening organically every day, resulting in multiple recording and distribution deals being signed thanks to our platform, in just a few months.

We are very excited about how our platform has unleashed playlist curators’ potential as the “A&Rs of the future” and how the connections that were made on our platform have led to real-world deals for our artist members. This community is the most critical element to the platform, and we will continue to grow & support it in any ways we can!

Access to this data needs to be accessible to all.

Education and access are the great equalizers. We believe that all great music deserves the chance to make it to the right ears, not just labels/artists who can afford to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. That is why we are moving to a member-based pricing model, starting at only $8 per month. But more on this later…

In the meantime, we thank you for joining us in our mission to empower artists with data and exposure that allows them to reach the ears of their potential fans.

We invite you to join our community; become a member today to tap into the power of data and get your music discovered by the biggest independent community of real playlist curators and A&Rs.

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